Ash vs. Evil Dead showrunner on Season 2: 'We're building out the mythology of his life'

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The first season of Ash vs. Evil Dead was a (very) bloody good time, but what is the creative team cooking up for the next Deadite battle royale?

Executive producer Craig DiGregorio chatted with Collider about the upcoming second season and what the narrative focus will be once the show returns in September on Starz. According to DiGregorio, the first season was all about catching up with Ash, following the 20+ year gap at the end of Army of Darkness.

As for Season 2, the showrunner noted that they’ll be digging deeper into Ash’s life before all this insanity — telling the story of the man he was supposed to be before hell (literally) derailed his path. It’s an interesting angle, and considering the first season ended with the gang headed for Jacksonville, it’ll be interesting to see where the story picks up.

Here’s an excerpt from DiGregorio’s comments:

“To me, Season 1 was two things – learning what had happened with this character that you hadn’t seen for 30 years, from the time between the cabin and the present day, and also realizing that he is not too isolated to make a relationship with Pablo and Kelly. So, Season 1 was about learning about him in the interim 30 years. Season 2 focuses on Ash going home and going back to his hometown. In that respect, you’re learning about another side, which you haven’t seen. In this season, I think you’re going to learn more about what his life was like before he went to the cabin. What was his life like? Who were the people that he hung out with in high school? Maybe we’ll see members of his family. Lee Majors is playing his dad on the show. I’ve seen dailies of Lee, and he’s so good. He’s the type of person where we wrote the part with a specific voice in mind, and he came in and just nailed it and did better. So, our plan for Season 2 is finding out more about Ash and his distinct past, before he read the book. Who was he and what was he really running away from? The Delta will also be a big character, this season.

There are certain big fan questions that I get asked, that I think we will have at least looked into doing. I won’t say that we are or aren’t doing something, but there are a lot of questions I get, and if you were to list out the five biggest questions, there are a couple that we definitely have looked into a lot. It feels like, for the first season, although we definitely imprinted a lot on what those 30 years were, when you picked Ash up at the beginning of the pilot, you could see what he was. There was only so much we could do to expand out who he was. But for this season, in particular, we’re really defining what this guy was. Sam [Raimi] and I and Bruce [Campbell] are really defining who this guy was and we’re building out the mythology of his life. To take one of your favorite childhood heroes, in quotes and with a question mark, and really flesh him out a bunch and see who he was is really cool.”

Ash vs. Evil Dead returns to Starz in September.

What do you think of the series? Is it a worthy successor to the Evil Dead legacy?